As we speak, Joshua and Caleb are playing basketball in the driveway while John David and Daniel are rolling around on the trampoline together. Alan is eating supper, and I am updating my blog for the first time in a week. Slacker.

I’ve been working on photo albums through Snapfish lately. Y’all, photo books are 70% off this month (March), so I am making as many photo books as I possibly can. I have about a hundred I could make since the last time I was caught up on photo printing was 2013…

One of my newly created albums came in the mail today, of photos from 2 years ago. One of the boys was a little embarrassed to realize that in this album was an adorable photo of the 4 boys reading together in a chair, and he was in his underwear. Just his underwear. I might have jokingly threatened to share said photo album with future dates. He might have retorted back that the page will definitely be torn out long before that. Sigh. Oh well.

The photo is safe for now, and the picture is so cute. I’d show you, but well, I am at least nicer than that.

I’m trying to hold the boys to just family parties this year. Well, family parties + just 1 or 2 friends.

I took a vote this morning, asking everyone here if they’d rather go hiking today or stay home. Everyone but Daniel voted to stay home, so here we are.

I tried to go walking, but it started raining on me so I cut that short. I passed Joshua on my way inside. Apparently, rain drops don’t phase him. He came in with soaking wet hair.

Y’all don’t want to know how many squabbles I have refereed today. Ugh. This should definitely count as a special skill on my resume. I am extremely experienced at sending everyone to different rooms.

We did have an epic game of driveway birdie tonight, though…wait. No, that’s not what they called it…badminton! I had to ask them what the game was called. Ha! But it was super fun!

Remember that Mother’s Day that they bought me a Badminton set, and so we played that for Mother’s Day? Only now, the boys are actually way better at it than I am!

Joshua, Alan, and I were sitting in the living room today getting quite a show from a new sport taking place on our trampoline. Daniel and John David were out there together, and we watched them take their shirts off and have a shirt war.

Joshua observed, “John David sure is good at whipping Daniel with his shirt!” They had a better view than I did, and they kept saying, “Ohhhh Owww  Whoa! Ho! hahahaha! Is he okay…..yeah.”

For some reason this game made Daniel and JD quite happy, so we didn’t intervene. Perhaps we should all try it…. ha!

**************

I came home a couple of weeks ago with the complete DVD set of the original Full House. Why? Because I’m the world’s worst person at sticking to any sort of budget…..also because we have already watched Fuller House, so I felt like the boys had to see the first series to understand it better.

Alan took so long at Walmart this afternoon, on a trip to buy Daniel’s birthday present and Tostitos, that we watched 4 episodes of Full House while he was gone. Our family is all about it right now, so don’t be surprised if you hear the boys say “How rude!” or “Have mercy!”

*************

I heard 2 funny quotes this week that I wanted to share.

1.”Who is I love Lucy? Were they zombies?”

2. A leprechaun visited John David’s school. He left them Skittles and a messy classroom of confetti and such. I asked J.D. who the leprechaun was. He didn’t miss a beat, “Jesus.”

**************************

I came across some encouraging Bible verses in my reading today:

“Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.”   John 6: 15

I’ve been thinking lately about how apolitical Jesus was. He was never interested in power or rule or talking politics. He wanted to teach about God, love, and healing people. I feel like as Christians we need to persist in getting our message of love out to the world. Things of this world are temporary, but our souls are eternal. Love is eternal.

“Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”    John 6: 27-29

Believe. Faith. Hope. Love. Against such things there is no law.

And now on to the rest of Spring Break. 1 day down, 8 days to go. I’m excited. I still have a  great deal of refereeing ahead of me, but it’s worth it because I also have days of Badminton and shirt-whipping.

I’d upload photos for you to have a peek into our adventures, but my computer is so full it won’t let me upload anything new. Issues. I can only give you pictures that I can steal from Facebook. Triple sigh. You know that’s driving me crazy. But don’t worry. I will not rest until I fix this problem!

Okay, one more hilarious quote from tonight:

“Hey, Mom, I am five, and you are thirteen. No! 14. You are 14.”

hehehe Nope. I didn’t correct him. Is that wrong? I say no.

Have a great Spring Break, y’all!

The post Spring Break Day 1: The Shirt War, Full House, Jesus, and The Vote appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Today I want to talk about creativity. When I was a child, it was greatly celebrated, but I was never so sure that I actually possessed any of this creativity stuff. There were only two subjects I disliked in school: P.E. (We’ve talked about this) and Art. Yep. I never liked Art. I love to admire other people’s artwork. I would just rather not make any myself.

Sure, I write all the time. Non-fiction. All of my work is simply jotting down what happened, what’s funny, and what is true. Reading fantasy, sure, I’ll do that. Dream up fantasy? Wait. I do that too, but I keep those thoughts to myself. Be thankful.

So today, I’m going to let Caleb tell the stories. His stories are grounded in fantasy, but they sound quite believable. In fact, one of them IS TRUE. See if you can guess which one.

The photo wall I’m most proud of. This is as creative as I get folks: picture arrangement.

See my fire-place mantel scarecrow. You can buy him at Hobby Lobby, often on sale. It makes me smile every time I look up at my fun fall mantel.

Caleb’s Stories #1: Aiden, the Wolf, and Me   (Written as Told by Caleb)

One day me and Aiden were playing in the woods. This was before we all got poison oak, and you told us we couldn’t play back there any more, Mom. We were just on the edge of the woods. All of a sudden, we saw this whole herd of deer, and they just came running by us. They didn’t even see us.

Me and Aiden were like, “Whoa! What the…” Then a WOLF ran by!!  Two wolves! Two wolves were chasing the deer, because it was getting dark outside. Aiden and I just froze.

One of the deer was so scared, he even fell off the little bridge into the ditch! I guess he just wasn’t looking where he was going or something, but then he was stuck down there and couldn’t get out.

It was the scariest day of our lives.

Each of the boys drew a self-portrait in art class at school. I thought this was impressive for a kindergartener! Daniel is a perfectionist, so he covered up some black splotches with paper, as you can see.

Nonna has her house all decked out for fall too, and I thought this turkey centerpiece she made was cute and festive.

Story #2: The Raccoon Family

One day, it was starting to get dark, and Joshua and Aiden and I were playing in that big tree. You remember, that one that was so awesome for climbing? We saw a whole family of raccoons come out of the SEWER!

The dad was super fat, too. Then there were like four little raccoon babies. They were so adorable! Like kittens! We wanted to pet one, but of course, we didn’t because we were a little bit scared to do that. We tried to throw a rock at the big fat dad, but then we were like, no, just kidding, and we didn’t throw a rock at him. We did scare him though, and we didn’t think he’d be able to fit back into that sewer. It was hilarious!! We were all dying laughing.

Nonna created this coffee table arrangement with a basket and fall gourds and silk flowers. Love it!

Even our littlest man has been getting creative.

I just loved how Caleb set this table up. That’s an octopus, wearing a baseball cap, with its tentacle wrapped around JD’s sock monkey.

Last, but not least:

Story #3: Bats!!!

One day, it was starting to get dark, and Aiden and I were still playing outside. We were whacking the trees on the hill behind our house with sticks. Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Then, all of a sudden, like FIVE bats flew out of the tree we were hitting!!! Aiden and I looked at each other with the wide eyes like, “Aughhhhhh!” Then we just took off running. He ran to his house, and I ran to our house. It was crazy. I’d never seen bats that close before.

Daniel’s drawing of Grandaddy

Before: Our new house has these two windows that you could see through a little too well.

The new window treatment was hard to photograph from outside, so I took this photo from inside. See the pretty new windows? Alan got these static cling strips from Lowe’s and stuck them right on there. Now you can’t see straight into our living room any more.

Caleb loves to draw sharks, and he’s also enamored with that swirly-sky Monet painting. You can sometimes see signs of that in his art. Looks like this boat is in a lot of trouble.

We love to draw monsters.

Spongebob characters, by Caleb

My husband is surprisingly creative too. I guess that’s where the kids get it from.

Recently, the cover completely fell off of my Bible. Alan decided to fix it for me one morning while I was away and surprised me with this when I got home:

Duct-Tape Bible cover

Teal is my favorite color, so he bought teal duct-tape and white duct-tape. Then he wrapped my Bible in it. It turned out cute too!

The original burgundy cover doesn’t even show through.

I was impressed.

So which of Caleb’s 3 stories do you think was true? Leave your guess down below or on Facebook, and I will tell you if you got it right. If you haven’t liked my Facebook page yet, be sure to do so. It’s hard to keep up both a personal FB page and a blog FB page, so I am trying to move to primarily using the blog FB page. You can follow me on Facebook here.

Happy fall, y’all!!

The post Caleb, Aiden, and the Wolf: Creative Tales From California appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Alan and Mom. Mom was such a huge help the week of my procedure. Thanks, Mom!!

The Move

Yesterday I started cleaning out the kitchen cabinets and drawers. No, I’m not packing myself. Alan’s job hires people to do that, so why would I?

What I’m doing is trying to eliminate all things that I do not want or use so that I don’t have to unpack them in a few weeks. We have way too much junk.

Junk. Just junk.

How do we all accumulate so much of it?

Is it the result of retail therapy gone overboard?

The inability to let go? I don’t know. But somehow every two years, we haul off truck loads and truckloads of our old stuff to Goodwill and the dump.

Occasionally, we sell a thing or two. I got $25 for an Ergo baby carrier…

Bye-bye, Ergo, we had a love/hate relationship anyway.

I sold a Mickey Mouse Cake Pan for $5. Because let’s face it. I bought it 2 years ago and never used it. I’m obviously too intimidated by the directions and the hand cramping to actually decorate a Mickey Mouse cake.

My hand hurts now, just thinking about squeezing out all those icing stars.

So yeah, we’re moving. We still don’t actually have a house to move INTO yet, but we hand over the keys to this one on June 25th.

Do you know what the funny part is? The funny part is that my California Health Crisis earned me a plane ticket with JD, so I don’t even have to participate in pack and load week or the cross-country road trip. I leave on the 20th.

……Oh. my. goodness. Daniel is watching Teletubbies. I thought we killed those obnoxious things off years ago. How? How are they suddenly back here, back into our lives????

“Daniel, please, please, don’t watch this show. I can’t take it. It’s too dumb.”

“Yeah,” Daniel agreed. Now we’re watching an alphabet video. It’s not too bad.

What was I saying? OH YEAH! Our moving plan. I ended up getting the super-sweet side of the stick, thanks to my psoriatic arthritis issues.

Mom and Me at Point Lobos. We’ve established that Pt. Lobos is what I will miss most about California, right?

The Psoriatic Arthritis

Psoriatic arthritis is basically pronounced sorry-attic arthritis. In my head, I also call it sorry ass arthritis because that’s what it makes me feel like.

It’s back, and it’s ugly, and I’ve just stopped playing around about it. My big toe swelled, but I’ve figured out a way to walk without using it, and then I bumped it just a tiny bit on JD’s potty stool, and now it’s swollen, bruised, and bloody.

The ligament that connects my knees to my hips is inflamed all the way up, on both sides, and my left thumb is permanently bending slower than all of my other fingers. The shoulder tendonitis is back too. But at least the plantar fasciitis finally went away. So, there’s that.

The Heart

I asked my cardiologist about what anti-inflammatory meds I could take. I need them right now, for this flare-up and the up-coming travel.

He was obviously not too concerned. He said, “As long as you don’t take cocaine or meth, I’m good.”

As you can see, my cardiologists are super worried. Not.

I had my last appointment the other day. Dr. G is my super-soft-spoken but very personable electrophysiologist, a.k.a. a highly educated heart doc that specializes in electrical problems of the heart, arrhythmias such as ventricular tachycardia.

He was actually kind and sympathetic about my Linq monitor. Wait. A kind and sympathetic doctor? What is this new thing?? I’ve just had bad doctor luck these past two years, so this was a nice change.

He’s funny too. I asked if anything had shown up on my Linq monitor. He explained that he has the parameters on the thing set so that the v-tach won’t register unless it’s over 195 bpm or at least 16 beats in a row.

“Ha! I don’t think it’s ever that bad,” I said.

“Well, I set it that way because that’s the point at which we would need to do something about it.” he explained.

Sure.

“Can I put off going to a cardiologist for a while because I’ve got so much to do with this move… I feel like I’ve been to the cardiologist enough for one year anyway…”

“Yes, of course, you have a lot going on. Take care of that, and then you can get a new cardiologist. UNLESS you have symptoms.”

“I have a lot of symptoms lately, but none long enough to set off the monitor (16 beats), so what do I know?”

“Well, that’s because you got a plate full of s***.”

Haaa!!!  Ain’t that the truth.

I’m always surrounded by children or other stay-at-home moms or home school moms, so I don’t hear a lot of conversational swear words. So now when I do hear them, it’s really hard not to giggle. Yeah, I probably did snicker.

Oh, well. Dr. G says he’s not worried about my v-tach. My heart is structurally fine.  His actual words were, “You’re not going to die suddenly in your sleep or anything.”

Ha! So there’s my good news of the day, folks. I’m not going to die suddenly in my sleep, at least not this year. It sounds like a joke, but that DOES happen to v-tach sufferers when there is heart disease present or with an inherited condition, like Brugada. However, when those things aren’t present, and the v-tach is short, like mine, it is considered benign.

JD was seriously THIS small when we moved in!! 2 years ago!!

I have a good sense of closure from this California Health Crisis chapter: the pain, the fevers, and the heart thing…Most of it was all from psoriatic arthritis, which mostly goes away if I don’t eat wheat or get too stressed. So there you go. I’m learning how to better take care of myself.

And the funny part…

So did you catch the part about Alan? Did you read that right? They wrote me out of the cross-country move and the pack week. SOOOO..  Alan will be overseeing the pack out and the cross-country move by himself, along with our three oldest children. That’s right. Alan is  doing a week-long road trip with Joshua, Caleb, and Daniel.

I know. Poor Alan. What kind of a wife am I? Well, I’ve done all the other pack and moves, thank you, most of them by myself. But yes, I usually shipped off the kids.

I’ve asked him repeatedly to send another kid on the plane with me, to lighten his load. But Alan says it will be fun.

I’ll give you a minute to laugh…

It won’t be dull, anyway. You gotta give him that. A friend of ours suggested that we should strap a Go-pro on Alan for this trip. It would surely make for a funny video.

Nah, what am I saying? Our kids are perfect angels, and so are we.

In fact, today I gave Cherielle a ride home from church, and Alan had all four boys with him because we’re trying to keep the van CLEAN, in order to sell it.

Alan decided to take all the boys with him to the grocery store.

While he was there, there was quite a spectacle. A certain five-year-old boy took a gold “good behavior” reward coin from his big, eight-year-old brother.

“Hey, give that back!” the eight-year-old demanded.

But the little guy only clutched the good-behavior coin even tighter. Oh, the irony..

So the two ended up WRESTLING IN THE FLOOR of the check-out line over this coin. The oldest boy, a ten-year-old, was dismayed and embarrassed at his younger brothers’ behavior, so he started punching the middle one in the back saying, “Cut it out! Get up! Cut it out!”

my little wrestlers with Aunt Janet and Nonna

Don’t worry. They were quickly apprehended, and upon their return home, appropriate consequences were measured out. I’m sure those weren’t our little angels, scrapping it out over a Sunday School coin in the floor of the grocery store….Nah….

I’m just thankful I was not at the grocery store. I was at home putting the frozen pizzas in the stove.

Just another day in paradise, y’all. Have a great week!

The post The Move, My California Health Crisis, and The Grocery Store Scuffle appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

It is done. I am Wi-fi equipped. No, literally. My chest has wi-fi. Today Dr. Grogin implanted a Linq heart monitor into my chest.

That’s right. I got to go through just one more heart patient embarrassment.

Let me set the scene for you.

#1. About 5 nurses and 1 doctor in the room

#2. I was naked down to my waist.

#3. They had to cover my face with a cloth because the procedure was just below my neck, and the area had to be sterile.

#4. I was totally in my right mind. Only local anesthesia, because that’s how I asked to do it.

I know you think that as I lay there, blindfolded and half-naked, that I was thinking, “Oh, I am so going to blog about this.”

But not really. I was actually thinking things like:

“This cloth covering my face is smothering me. I should have let them sedate me.”

and

“Oh, I’m freezing. When will this be over?”

and

“I am so naked. I am so naked.”

As you may or may not know, I’ve been having strange heart-pounding and roller-coaster-like heart cartwheels since January. Through much testing, we found out that it’s ventricular tachycardia episodes, but otherwise my heart is structurally fine.

At first, my favorite doctor, PA Carlquist, thought that I would need an ablation, but then Dr. Grogin decided against it. Instead, he wanted to implant a Linq heart monitor into my chest. This thing goes right under my skin and can last up to three years. This should give them more information on what my heart is doing.

I joke that I have Wi-Fi because the thing communicates with a little data base I keep by my bed that sends reports to Dr. Grogin. Fascinating, really. I’d never heard of these until this year. But then, I’d never even heard of ventricular tachycardia until this year either. Medical professional I am clearly not.

I decided to do the procedure, which is very quick and easy, unsedated because I really don’t like feeling woozy-headed, especially considering that I’m going to my boys’ AWANA awards program tonight. I’d like to be firing from all thrusters while I obsessively take their pictures and beam with pride.

But don’t worry. They gave me lots and lots of local anesthetic. I even told them, “Remember, I’m a red-head, so feel free to give me plenty. It takes a lot.”

I can’t explain it, but it’s true. It takes a lot of drug for me. They were nice. They gave me lots.

I think this Linq monitor is going to be a good course of action. In fact, while I was in the hospital today, the EKG machine went off two different times and said “Pair of PVCs”. Of course, you know I came home and googled what the heck a PVC is. It’s basically the same thing as ventricular tachycardia, just far less serious because it’s only one or two beats. It’s like 2 ventricular beats being off instead of 6, and it is actually very common, whereas v-tach is rare. But it’s not surprising that I would have these, since I’ve had V-tach.

I have learned so much about hearts this year. 2016 has been a serious drag, but it’s all okay because April is going home. The South is calling my name. And every time I start to feel down, I just remind myself, “Self, we are going home. And this will be nothing more than the past, my own strange time in the land of Oz.”

There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. C’mon, Toto, only 6 more weeks! I’m clicking my ruby-red slippers with excitement!

For more updates on how the Linq experience went for me over the three years that I wore it see these posts:

Diagnosis: V-Tach

What it was like to wear a Linq Monitor for three years

The post The Linq Procedure for Arrhythmia: Another Half Naked Patient Story appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

JD keeps me young. Thank you, JD!!

Many people develop heart problems while they are still young, but trust me, I’ve sat in the cardiology waiting room enough to know that I am nowhere near the average age. Most people in there have a walker and an accompanying nurse.

In fact, the receptionists sometimes assume that I’m there with an elderly patient that I walked in after.

“Wait. Are you with Mrs. Hammerstein?”

“No, no, I have a 3:00 appointment.”

Wednesday is my heart MRI. I’ve had an embarrassing number of MRIs in the past year, and I don’t expect anything bad to show up on this one. I wouldn’t even mind getting this MRI, except that the idea of dye coursing through my veins and my heart gives me the eebidy-jeebidies.

Yes, I reserve the right to remain a medical chicken.

I am chicken. I’d rather skip this mess and hope these problems just go away on their own. Some people totally don’t get that, and I don’t know how to make them understand.

“April, MRIs are nothing to be afraid of. The dye doesn’t hurt.”

“I know. It just sounds icky, and it makes me feel queasy to think about it.”

“Well, ablations don’t hurt either. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

Yes, thank you so much for these comforting words of empathy. Doesn’t matter, there’s something about the idea about running a wire up through my arteries and into my heart that, yes, makes my legs tingle, my nose crinkle, and yes, it just gives me the willies.

I’m not unwilling to do it, but that doesn’t mean I have to be all happy about it.

This whole heart patient process has actually been rather comical to me. I laugh a lot inside my head. Some of this stuff is absolutely hilarious, and at the time, there’s no one there to laugh with me.

But don’t worry, I’ve been saving up my embarrassing patient thoughts, and I’m here to share.

All of growing up, having babies, and getting older is this continuous process of being stripped of all pride and dignity, isn’t it? You start out young and cute, strutting your stuff, and up until that first pap smear, people mostly let you keep the private things private.

Then that whole giving birth process happens. There you are, with a person on either side of you holding your legs, in all your naked glory.

For a few months, you remember that you have no pride or dignity left. You know that your husband fully witnessed what happened when you pushed that hard, how stress-ball you could become during a c-section spinal block, and just the blood and gore of it all. Sometimes I would sit there, days after, remember the pain, and accidentally find myself reliving it all and crying…..

*Shudder.*

But fast forward a few years, and I’ve sort of forgotten all of those things. Even still, my body will never be the same. I’ve birthed four children, and I’m not even sure my stomach skin is still attached to me. I’m okay with that. It was worth it, and I think I’m cleverly disguising the pooch with cute clothing.

I’ve moved on, until suddenly I became a heart patient and why are all of the techs who I have to be shirt-less in front of young males? Whyyyyyyyyyyy? Oh, the mortification.

First, it happened in the Emergency Room. At triage, my heart rate was 159. They rushed me straight back. I wasn’t even finished putting on my hospital gown, and they were hooking me up to an EKG machine. Go figure the EKG man was my age. As he placed those EKG pads all over my boob, my breastbone, and my flabby-mommy-belly, I cringed on the inside. Sigh. Thankfully, he was very kind and professional.

He came back to do several EKGs, and every single time, he would forget to cover my boobs back up. I was all covered in wires.

“Ummmm. Can you please put my bra back down?”

“Oh yeah! Sorry I keep forgettin’ that.”

But at least ER EKG man was in his 30s. I didn’t even feel all that self-conscious. I figured he’s seen worse.

That was nothing compared to the next few experiences.

First, there was the stress test. I had no idea that you have to wear an open-to-the-front hospital gown shirt for that, so I brought my ten-year-old with me.

THANKFULLY, I wore a sports bra and high-waisted pants. Yep. I was as covered up as you can possibly get for a stress test. That tech was, of course, also a male. Thankfully, he was my age or older, or he just lost his hair early. Hard to tell. Have you ever seen Gru on Despicable Me? This guy looked exactly like him.

He was extremely professional though, so I wasn’t completely horrified when I showed up for the echocardiogram (heart ultrasound) a week later and found out that Gru is in charge of those as well. Thankfully, I did not take any little boys with me to that one. Heart ultrasounds are nothing like pregnancy ultrasounds. Boobs are all flopping out there in the open, and it’s all very let’s-just-get-this-over-with.

But then there was the 24-hour Holter monitor.

By this point, I should have known to be ready for humiliation, but it was far worse than the other tests. This tech was not Gru. He looked to be all of 15-years-old. I am not even exaggerating. You see, that day I was wearing muffin-top blue jeans and had totally not thought this thing through.

“Unbutton your blouse,” he said.

“Oh. Right.”

There I was. Hot pink push-up bra, muffin-top jeans and the ol’ belly seemed 6 inches larger than usual. I shook my head at myself inwardly.

Dear women in need of jobs, could you please all go apply at your local cardiology office? Seriously, for the love of easily- embarrassed- women everywhere, for the cardiac patients like me.

When I went back to get the monitor removed the next day, it was the same guy. I very quickly started removing the pads and cords myself and fled the building…

Haaaa!!!! No, I’m kidding.

I actually DID begin removing wires myself as quickly as possibly, but he said, “Here, I’ll do that for you,” and came straight over and helped me. I was working at ending the heart-test-embarrassment as quickly as possible.

There’s no one like the medical professionals to keep us all humble, eh?

Enough about my naked embarrassment already…..onto the giveaway announcement!

First off, I want to say thank you to everyone who participated in the drawing for a free copy of VeggieTales Puppies and Guppies on DVD! And thank you to the VeggieTales company for partnering with Stories of Our Boys.

And congratulations are in order to Diana of Utah!! Hope you and your kiddos thoroughly enjoy this fun DVD!

The post My Embarrassing Heart Patient Stories and the Giveaway Winner appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

My crazy week is over. There’s a fresh new week to take on, with no mistakes in it yet.

Rest assured. We will add plenty. 🙂

But this week my spirit is at rest. It won’t be much easier. Joshua broke his arm Saturday, and it will be re-cast this week.

That means we will have to manage……dumdumdum……the health insurance circus. How many hoops can we make this lady go through? They are the best at that.

JD threw up Saturday night, which means we are now paranoid city.

I’m so thankful Mom is here!!

And you know who else is here? The Holy Spirit. I have peace in my soul. Everything will be okay. Last week I had no peace, and we all have times like that.

So today I have the Mary Tyler Moore song in my brain. I might just make it after all.

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”       Galatians 6:9-10

A lot of funny things have been happening. These people just keep me in stitches. We laugh so much.

The other day, JD decided he wanted to use the potty.

He used it all right. He sat on it, he stood on it, he turned it upside down and wore it as a hat, and then he finally dragged it to the big potty and stood on it and tried to go.

Then I put his diaper back on him and took him back to the living room. I am not ready to potty train JD just yet. It’s not that his time isn’t here, it’s that MY time isn’t here.

********

Daniel has started saying “I”! It’s so exciting! I thought this day would never come. I am that unrealistic.

**********

Joshua and I enjoyed hours of bonding time in the Emergency Room Saturday, from 7:30-10pm. That was the place to be this weekend. We talked and talked. I have four little boys, and yet I only have one that has been to the ER this year, and that one has been THREE times!!!

In a year!

The nurses are beginning to recognize him. “Oh yeah! You had all that poison oak on your face! How did you break your arm this time?”

Joshua’s triage nurse was a nice young man, and he shared with Joshua that he had broken both of his arms before, because he was a gymnast. Well, this was right as I walked up from registration, and I said, “Oh, you were a gymnast?”

He said yes, but then he was finished, so he walked away.

As I sat there, I realized that I might have hurt his feelings with that comment, if he took it the wrong way.

A few minutes later, he called us over to the next part of triage, and he said to me, “I was a MALE gymnast.”

Oh, poor guy.

“Oh! No, I was just thinking that you sound a lot like Joshua. He’s always doing flips and stuff on his trampoline.”

Bless his heart. I never cease to find new ways to embarrass myself, especially if I talk to people…

It was such an interesting night at the E.R. Joshua and I talked about how things can be both sad and funny.

Emergency rooms are the embodiment of that! There was the man sleeping in the floor, the lady who came in because a cat scratched her, a sick baby who we truly felt bad for, someone had a stroke, and a pitiful little girl with her foot covered in blisters.

I MIGHT have jokingly compared Joshua to our dear Aunt Janet, who stuff just happens to. Joshua got a good laugh out of that, and you should have heard him re-telling Janet’s stories!

“Joe, Joe, come over here,” Joshua said, “look at my toe. That’s not water, Joe.”

He told several other Janet story snippets.

“Wow, Joshua,” I said, “You remember Janet’s hospital stories better than I do.”

They are always listening, well you know, except for when you want them to.

I texted Alan with Joshua’s progress. He texted me back, “JD is throwing up.”

Fantastic. The funny thing is that I knew this was coming. Isn’t it cool when God occasionally will give you a little heads up?

We were out the other night, and a little girl who was playing with my children casually mentioned to me, “I threw up. At home.”

Yes. I was flipping out internally. She was playing with Daniel. Does she mean today???? Always listen for omens…

Not much sleep was had here last night, but I feel full of joy and hope for the week ahead. My spirit has been quieted by God. Spiritual turmoil is the very worst kind, to me. The things that scare me the most are out there, and God is here with me. Come what may, everything will be okay. 

Thank you again for all of your prayers and letters of encouragement this week! It made all the difference!!!

Here are a few photos from our first two days of school:

Is it bad that I already misplaced Thursday?

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The post “You’re Gonna Make it After All!” A Night at the ER appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Sometimes I wondered if my life would become less interesting as my children get older and “more mature.”

BAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Nope. When people say that there is never a dull moment in raising four boys, that is a very literal, literal statement.

Case in point: MLKJ Day weekend:

We had zero plans, other than Joshua’s opening basketball game, which they lost.  Not a big deal to us. We are experts at losing. I don’t know what that says about us…..but it was our head coach’s very first loss as a coach!??!  Heh???  Bizarre, considering he’s been coaching youth basketball for years and years. I’m pretty sure he was disappointed. In all fairness, our 3rd/4th graders were up against a team of humongous 5th graders that dwarfed our kids, and yes, I am petty enough to point that out. 😉 hehehe

The rest of the weekend made my basketball attendance fail, mentioned in my last post, I Did Try, sound like a walk in the park.

Sunday afternoon, I went to choir practice. Midway through practice, my cell phone rang. I was so embarrassed because we had just finished joking about that happening in the service this morning. I grabbed my phone and silenced it, but I noticed it was Alan. Might be important. Better go find out. I walked outside and called him back.

“You need to come home right away.”

“Okay. What happened??”

“Caleb fell and broke his front tooth in half.”

(diagonally!!!)

“Oh nooo. I’m on my way.”

That still didn’t prepare me for the sight of my little Ca-bob. His mouth was swollen, actually it still is swollen, to proportions I’ve never seen before. They had gone on a family walk/scooter ride to the mini-mart in our neighborhood, and Caleb took a spill, landing square on his mouth. We never did find the other half of Caleb’s big, beautiful permanent front tooth. 🙁

Poor thing. He’s so sweet and so tough. He’s handling it all really well. I still haven’t actually seen what his front tooth looks like. His lip is so swollen that I can’t even get a glimpse of it.

Alan found a local family dentist that agreed to come in and look at Caleb’s mouth last night. The dentist said that Caleb’s mouth is too swollen to work on until next week. I personally thought surely it would look a little better by today, but it doesn’t. The dentist also said that several other teeth are gashed as well. A lot of work will have to be done.

Lots of dental work…hmmm…All of your birthday presents just got smaller…. hehehe just kidding…

I can’t show you a picture. I feel too bad for the little fella to share that with the world. Just keep him in your prayers. He can barely eat or drink anything. His mouth is cut to pieces.

So on a lighter note……a few more stories, all from this weekend:

1. We put JD in a big boy bed. Last night, at 1am, he suddenly figured out how to open his bedroom door, and headed downstairs to the kitchen. Yeah….

2. At 11am this morning, one of the neighborhood boys knocked on our front door.  He handed Joshua a flyer he had made on the computer that said this:

“Help *Amazing Smith* find a new boyfriend. Come to the rally at the park at 12:00, or die.”

The “or die” part was scratched out with marker.

By the way*I changed the names…

*Johnny explained, “Here’s this flyer. This may be a little inappropriate. Amazing’s boyfriend (she’s like 7) broke up with her yesterday, so we’re all gathering at the park today, you know, to show our support.”

Now I call her Amazing because she is this adorable little blonde girl who has played at our house a few times. She earned the nickname (in my head) because when I’m giving, “Stop opening and closing the garage door,” and “The last person through always needs to shut the door,” lectures, she is always our only guest that actually RESPONDS.

“Okay. Yes ma’am. Did you know that we have a baby too?”

It’s so refreshing. Boys don’t do a ton of talking. Do you give people nicknames in your head, or is that just me?

Anyway, the whole rally thing was so ludicrous it was hilarious. As soon as *Johnny left, Joshua just laughed and laughed. He made sure he was there promptly at 12, though. 😉

Caleb and Dan, at the Golden Gate bridge, on New Year’s Day. I know that looks dangerous, but I can assure you that the wall only had grass on the other side. It was not a huge dropoff as it appears in the photo. I promise he was only up there for a second.  Also, blame Alan not me. I was in the car with JD. 😉

3. The dustpan

I swept the kitchen, but when I finished, I noticed the dustpan was not in its place. Wha??? Where’s the dustpan?  I looked everywhere. Then I began to question the children.

I started with Daniel. He didn’t know. I moved on to Caleb. Nope. I went outside to where Joshua lives, the trampoline, and asked him.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I was using it when I was being a vampire. It’s in my room.”

I didn’t ask for further details. I was just so thankful to find my dust pan.

The post Broken teeth, the Boyfriend Rally, and the Missing Dustpan appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.